It is fitting that in the columns of _Success_, a magazine which has so recently investigated and so thoroughly and ably reported upon the opium curse in China, there should appear the account of a unique ceremony held in the International Settlement of Shanghai, illustrating in a striking manner the general feeling of the Chinese towards the anti-opium movement and setting an example that will make its influence felt in the most remote provinces of the empire. In response to liberal advertising there assembled in the spacious grounds of Chang Su Ho's Gardens, on the afternoon of Sunday, May 3, 1908, some two or three thousand of Shanghai's leading Chinese business men, together with a goodly sprinkling of Europeans and Americans, to witness the destruction of the opium-pipes, lamps, etc., taken from the Nan Sun Zin Opium Palace. In America, such a scene as this would have appeared little less than a farce, but here the obvious earnestness of the Chinese, the great value of the property to be destroyed and the deep meaning of this sacrifice, should have been sufficient to put the blush of shame upon the cheeks of the Shanghai voters and councilmen, who, representing the most enlightened nations of the earth, have compromised with the opium evil and permitted three-fourths of this nefarious business to linger in the "Model Settlement" when it has been so summarily dealt with by the native authorities throughout the land.
Within a roped-in, circular enclosure, marked by two large, yellow Dragon-Flags, were stacked the furnishings of the Opium Palace, consisting of opium boxes, pipes, lamps, tables, trays, etc., and as the spectators arrived the work of destruction was going rapidly on. Two native blacksmiths were busily engaged in splitting on an anvil the metal fittings from the pipes, and a brawny coolie, armed with a sledgehammer, was driving flat the artistic opium lamps as they were taken from the tables and placed on the ground before him. Meanwhile the pipes, mellowed and blackened by long use and many of them showing rare workmanship, were dipped into a large tin of kerosine and stacked in two piles on stone bases, to form the funeral pyre, while the center of each stack was filled in with kindling from the opium trays, similarly soaked with oil. On one of the tables within the enclosure were two small trays, each containing a complete smoking outfit and a written sheet of paper announcing that these were the offerings of Mr. Lien Yue Ming, manager of the East Asiatic Dispensary, and Miss Kua Kuei Yen, a singing girl, respectively. Both these quondam smokers sent in their apparatus to be burned, with a pledge that henceforth they would abstain from the use of the drug.